MASK project

MASK is an artistic research of the mask as a costume in a contemporary context.

MASK is a research and is a collaboration between the two costume designers Jeppe Worning and Charlotte Østergaard. MASK´s visual concept arose from an obstruction only to use materials and objects from our everyday life and the embodiment of the mask may cover smaller or larger parts of the body.







We present the project on the 5th on the symposium “Costume & Fashion in context and practice in Huddersfield, England:

MASK is a collaborative artistic research project between Charlotte Østergaard and Jeppe Worning utilizing mask as a costume to examine ones relationship to it from two perspectives (inside and outside) as well as the mask’s relevance and applications to our current social contemporary context. Their research process and methods start with artistic practice: beginning by interacting with the objects/materials of study to engage in a critical dialogue with the experiences they invoke. How can we as costume designers have an awareness of the costume from within and at the same time keep a gaze from the outside – from the observer´s perspective? Starting from the inside – we must dare to act as performers wearing the object of study feeling it from the inside. Because, as a wearer, the feeling of the material on the body may be a personal experience, it is also critical to incorporate a second perspective – perceiving the mask from the outside. This critical distance from the sensorial feeling allows one to look at the object of study from the perspective of the observer, as well as generates the discussion of: are the perspectives the same or different? And last, how do these two perspectives facilitate an understanding of and use of the symbolic mask in modern society? With self promotion and interaction with social media being a big part of everyday life, acting as our ‘social-contemporary mask’, how can the mask costume offer an opportunity to examine its effects on the body and its diverse expressions in an artist context?